Mussafah, United Arab Emirates. I had seen these faces before. But only in the cosy environments of art history classes or museums. Käthe Kollwitz or George Grosz drew the faces of workers in Germany in the early twentieth century: haggard, empty faces, to exhausted to protest their exploitation. And here I saw them for real, in Mussafah Industrial Area of Abu Dhabi.
Worn out busses transport workers around. They stare out into nowhere in the mornings as in the evenings. To tired for conversations. To exhausted to react. The dorms, the streets, the factories, all filthy and forsaken places. People as numbers: replaceable. Places as numbers: interchangeable.
Later that day I went to Yas island, the shiner side of Abu Dhabi. Here, another Frank Gehry building is planned to create yet another Bilbao effect and resuscitate a place from the dead. And, yes, Jean Nouvel and Tadao Ando and Zaha Hadid are also doing their things here. But until now there is only a showroom that announces the great future of this place. Branding, of course, comes before building. The place is so empty that the guards are spending all day in front of the gigantic mirrors looking at themselves.
The fuck-face of global capitalism. Here it is.Mussaffah, United Arab Emirates.
I had seen these faces before. But only in the cosy environments of art history classes or museums. Käthe Kollwitz or George Grosz drew the faces of workers in Germany in the early twentieth century: hagered, empty faces, to exhausted to protest exploitation. And here I saw them for real, in Musafah Industrial Area of Abu Dhabi.
Worn out busses transport workers around. They stare out into nowhere in the mornings as in the evenings. To tired for conversations. To exhausted to react. The dorms, the streets, the factories, all filthy and forsaken places. People as numbers: replaceable. Places as numbers: interchangeable.
Later that day I went to Yas island, the shiner side of Abu Dhabi. Here, another Frank Gehry building is planned to create yet another Bilbao effect and resuscitate a place from the dead. And, yes, Jean Nouvel and Tadao Ando and Zaha Hadid are also doing their things here. But until now there is only a showroom that announces the great future of this place. Branding, of course, comes before building. The place is so empty that the guards are spending all day in front of the gigantic mirrors looking at themselves.
The fuck-face of global capitalism. Here it is.